Why Most Brand Stories Suck (And How to Fix Yours)

Here’s a fun experiment: Look up a random company website and try to find its “story.” After five minutes of pop-up ads, subscription boxes, and scrolling through all the corporate jargon you will eventually find it:

“Founded in 2012, we are committed to providing innovative solutions to empower customers worldwide…”

Did you just pass out from boredom? It’s ok if you did, I just blacked out for a second writing it. Why is it that every time you try to find a company's story, you feel like you are time-traveling to a shareholder meeting? Well, it’s because most brand stories aren’t stories at all.
They’re timelines pretending to be narratives.

A real story makes you feel something.
A real story has tension, stakes, change.
A real story has a hero — and guess what?
It’s not you.

The hero is the customer.
You are the guide.
You are Yoda, not Luke.
You are Gandalf, not Frodo.
You are Mr. Miyagi, not Daniel-san.

The moment a brand stops trying to be the protagonist and starts being the mentor… everything changes.

The Anatomy of a Great Brand Story

A great story (brand or otherwise) has three simple ingredients:A hero, a struggle and a transformation.

1. Who is the hero?

It’s not you... It’s your audience, customer, or patron.
Not your founder, origin story, or product roadmap.

2. What is their struggle?

Give them the emotional truth behind their problem.
Not the “challenge” — you’re not pitching a startup or trying to get the next round of funding. You are looking for the pain behind the challenge.

3. How do you guide them to a transformation?

Don’t say, “You use our tool and life is better.” That’s basic.
Show them what they become by using your product. Most brands stop at the feature, thinking that’s the golden ticket. Great brands show the feeling and build a following.

Why Founding Stories Don’t Matter (Much)

Your founding story only matters if it answers this question:

“Why does this brand exist to serve ME?”.

If the answer is “because the founder was searching for meaning while hiking the Appalachian Trail when they had a revelation...” congratulations — you’ve written a diary entry, not a brand story.

What to Do Instead

You build a story your customers recognize themselves in. Something that they can relate to and feel seen.

You tap into the emotional before → the empowered after. Don’t just give them a sell sheet and a projected outcome. Give them the reason and the relief.

Become the mentor who helps them evolve, not just the help line they call when they need you to fix a bug.

Because that’s what a story is:

Transformation, evolution, and emotion. All things they can relate to.

And brands that embrace the hero’s journey philosophy win hearts, wallets, and loyalty — in that order.